


What Strangers See

by StripySock



Category: Supernatural
Genre: First Time, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Intercrural Sex, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-20
Updated: 2013-03-20
Packaged: 2017-12-05 20:56:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/727834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StripySock/pseuds/StripySock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three types of people Dean sees look at him and know what he is (and the one time Sam doesn't.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Strangers See

**Author's Note:**

> Written for salt-burn-porn

1.  
  
The first time was long before Dean ever laid a finger on Sam. He supposed to a certain kind of thing, the sort of thing that lived in the dark and thrived on misery, that what he felt was obvious; that it dripped off him, however deep he hid it. He didn't know what they thought it would do, bringing it up to him, throwing it in his teeth. Did they imagine he'd feel fellow feeling for them, one monster to another, let them crawl away into the night? He didn’t. He let them burn, let them twist on the end of his knife, spitting imprecations with their last breath until finally, empty of bile and blood, they slumped onto the floor and he was left alone to scrub at his skin and drown himself in hotel water, rusty from old pipes, still hot enough to burn his skin off if he let it. He was only ever clean for seconds before it came rushing back. The first time, Sam wasn't there, was away at college; Dean was past being mad, past being angry and deep in the stoic acceptance stage of knowing that everything leaves. His dad had left as well and Dean couldn't blame him. Their family had broken and scattered to the winds, leaving him tumbling in their wake, stripped and stubborn.  
  
  
It was a witch. A baby witch, even, he knew later, though she'd seemed pretty damn threatening at the time: but still all signed up to the cause and he wasn't letting her slip through his fingers. She’d been pinned pretty easily, hadn't been a witch long enough to really let that black blood flow, nothing much to be proud of. And he had never been a card-carrying monster fan, but he found it harder than he'd thought to off her even after she'd thrown him up against the wall and advanced on him with a knife. Something about the way her dark hair twisted over her shoulders, tiny silver butterfly clip holding back her bangs. Or the way she trembled as though she thought he wouldn't notice. He had been burning the spellbook when she got back, the spellbook and the pages of neat careful notes that she'd made like this was some goddamned college project. Rabbit?? she'd written beside one spell in blueberry scented gel pen, and it was kind of hard to believe she'd killed two people when her bookmark was a quote from some dead guy called Yeats.  
  
  
When she threw him up against the wall, he got free easily enough, winding her with an elbow to the stomach, her knife clutched uselessly in her hands. She sealed her own fate, though, the minute she opened her mouth. "Why are you doing this?" she asked, sounding curious, like she really wanted to know, though he'd be fucked if he gave her an answer. It's no accident that her bookmark was wedged right there between visions and bindings, and blood sacrifice worked real magic. He knew that, closed his ears to her as best as he could. "You've got no room to judge me," she said as she circled, shaking now. "I can see your thoughts, Dean Winchester," she whispered, "I know what you feel. I know what you hide in the dark," and he didn't know if she really thought getting him angry was gonna help her.  
  
  
"You know nothing, witch," he said, and lunged forward quickly. She only just barely avoided him, and there was real terror in her eyes now, like she'd never thought that this would catch up with her. It felt almost like he was toying with her, but at least she was on her feet and facing him.  
  
  
"I do," she said. Her nostrils widened as though she was catching the scent of something, and there were flecks of silver in her eyes. "It crawls over your skin, you know. I can see it behind your eyes. I know what you'd do for love, why can't you understand what I would?" and the last was said with a sob. He didn't even know what she was talking about, though there's a horrible crawling suspicion in his veins. This time when he lunged, he connected with her; her knife, swinging too late, cut into his arm. "He's your _brother_ ," she said, her eyes glazed as he sunk his knife in, and she was dead before he could spit in her face, could deny what she said and vomit on the floor because she didn't know what she was talking about. Dean'd never even thought it, not on the longest emptiest nights. Never.  
  
  
Afterwards, though, he prodded it with black curiosity at the oddest intervals until he couldn't think of Sam anymore without wondering. It screwed with his head something wicked in ways he couldn't name, all twisted up with how his heart had felt like it could thump out of his chest when Sam walked out the door, and half-twined with giving a blowjob to some guy he'd never even met, fucked up on cheap beer and cheaper whisky and not knowing where to put his hands, thinking suddenly absurdly of how he'd got there in the first place. Over a time it died down, but it never properly went away. Somewhere in his dufflebag he had a silver butterfly clip, though he didn't usually take anything from the things he killed. It reminded him of what he should want to forget completely.  
  
  
She wasn’t the last thing that crawled out of the dark (and later shimmered out of light) that looked too long at his soul, saw too deep; but they rarely said it, wiser and older.  They bit it back, though he could see the knowledge in their eyes: _so close to us._ After a time he learned to live with it, to bury it so deep that it sat within his heart, thumped through him with every beat, so diffused that it didn't register.  
  
2.  
  
Dean had had plenty of hook ups over the years: plenty of nameless faceless women and once or twice a man when he thought he could get away with it, and he'd learnt to recognise certain patterns. Sometimes he didn't go home with the girl in the stripper heels gone on two tequilas, promise ring tucked in her pocket; he went home with the friend who’d been sipping water and looking at him with experience, not promise. The ones who knew what they were doing, knew the drill, who'd done it before and come out the other end having fun. When Sam was on the road with him, things changed there, as well. They didn't look like brothers, and he'd fielded suggestions more than once from interested third parties that they all have a little fun together. Sam didn't come half the time, and the rest he left: went home early, slept the sleep of the guilty, probably dreamed of Jess, and Dean tried not to think about that. Then there were the ones who looked from him to Sam and back again with curious considering looks like they were weighing something up.  
  
  
They came in all forms. Once it was a girl on Spring Break, urged on by margaritas and catcalls who ground up against him a crowded bar, slid her arms around his neck and kissed him.  Classic wild girl on the surface, and Sam gave him a fond sort of look, mixed in with exasperation, but Sam could suck it: end of a case, end of a job, one night wasn't too much to ask. She twisted limberly against him, drained her glass and raised her eyebrows. "I'm not muscling in am I?" she asked, and there was half a smile right there on her face like she knew the answer, but her eyes weren't quite so sure. He leaned forward and kissed her properly, ignoring the hoots of her friends. "Not quite an answer," she said when he broke away, "but good enough.My name’s Amber." Despite what Sam said sometimes, Dean was _good_ at his job, good at observing had already spotted where her eyes were drifting to.  
  
  
There was a tall brown haired girl on the other side of the room, currently engaged in doing multiple shots and he looked at the girl at his side. "College," he said, meaning it half-jokingly, but it fell from his tongue too easily.  She glared at him a little. "College," she said, not agreeing, just stating a fact. "She's Jeannie."  
  
  
Dean couldn't help it; it was too perfect. "I guess that means you dream of Jeannie then," he said, and he was almost sure that was his night's lay about to throw a drink in his face. Her fingers were loose and relaxed around the empty glass, though, and she didn't move away. "I've always been a fan of no-name brands," she replied, and he liked this one. Almost enough to shrug off the thought that she'd thought he was in the same position as she was: can't have the one you love, love the one you're with. It wasn’t not love, what they did that night, but it was good enough, hard enough, and she came apart easily under his fingers and mouth before finally she rode him to completion. He wasn’t exactly anti-anything that gave him that sort of sensation. "Nice," she said afterwards, drowsily, and he moved the blond hair that was stuck to her face to one side.  
  
  
"Nice?" he says incredulously, but took it for what it was worth and lay there in the darkness, waiting to sleep. When it didn't happen, he got up as quietly as possible, picked up the discarded clothes that littered the floor of the motel, only slightly nicer than his. There was another bed in the room, still unoccupied, and he gave it half a glance. Perhaps that was Jeannie's bed. He didn't especially like leaving without a word, but she didn't seem like she expected anything else - and there was no denying that it stopped a lot of awkward moments.  
  
  
Letting himself in quietly to the room he and Sam were sharing that night, he wasn't surprised to see Sam curled up on his side, already asleep. "Kill-joy," he murmured, trying not to imagine how the evening could've gone. These were the moments that got him, the ones that he had to guard against, where he's just drunk enough to let his guard down, but not drunk enough to pass out. He considered the shadow, still sticky from the activities of earlier, but Sam's stillness had him reconsidering. One of them might as well get a good night's sleep. As he stared at the ceiling, listening to the quiet whirr of the fan in the corner, he couldn't help thinking of how things could have gone down earlier. Wondered what was written so clearly on his face, that some girl in a shitty bar could read him.  
  
  
That sort of knowledge was something he generally only saw in the things that he hunted; he wondered, not for the first time, if like called to like, some strange undefined magnetic attraction, powerful and deep, pulling them together regardless of what he wanted. The dark recognising its own, calling to it, digging deep and baring his shameful soul; the wild girls in wild bars there for reasons they could as ill define as he could, seeing something different but always wanting, always lacking, always needing. There wasn’t much he can do about it; he didn't know how to shutter himself off like Sam did, hiding everything first behind grief, then behind anger. That had always been his flaw, one he didn't know how to fix. Like a beacon, he thought, bright and clear and evident, drawing moths in. Monsters end up burnt, the light eliminated the darkness. He didn’t know what it does to girls like Amber. Didn't stick around long enough to find out.  
  
3.  
  
Then there were the people where there were no explanation for how they know what they do. They came in all shapes and sizes, these ones- Missouri raked him with a long look, didn’t take to him at all.  Though he didn’t wonder at the time, later he tortured himself with the thought that she could see what he hid so easily. She didn’t say a word and that’s about all he has to be thankful for. She was a psychic, though, and he couldn’t even be sure she saw anything. Other people were harder to account for. Even more than the ones who saw a couple, there were those who wouldn’t believe they were anything else. In Michigan one time some old guy followed them a block shouting abuse until, old guy or not, Dean wanted to knock his head off. He was only half pacified by Sam’s fingers digging in deep to his arm, practically dragging him along, and it wasn’t until later that he thought that probably did nothing but affirm the belief. Usually when people mistook them for something more, a quick grin and an explanation set them straight, no harm done.  
  
  
The times he didn’t like were the rare ones when that had no effect at all on precisely the look that people gave them. Not exactly the most common reaction, but not something he hadn’t experienced. There were gradients of awareness and knowledge in it. Some people, he reckoned, just thought they were lying: taking an easier path, an easier way to be together without questioning. Certain areas of the country, he supposed, it might make sense, might be safer like that. The worst ones, though, were the ones where people didn’t think he’s lying, but gave a measured look back and forth between them as though that said everything he needs to know.  If his hands were cleaner, if his mind was purer, he thought he’d upchuck at the idea. What was their excuse? he thought. It was bitter in his mouth; his excuse was that he felt it, but they had no reason. Nothing bar his face. He never wondered if it was Sam.  
  
  
It didn’t happen often, small mercies perhaps, but each time his stomach seized in knots. He didn’t give a shit what they thought, even if it turned his stomach, but he couldn’t bear the thought that they might say anything to Sam, anything that sounded like truth even if it was fucked up lies. Innuendo, he could do, just about; Sam rode roughshod over it, not giving a shit, but he wasn’t sure what he’d do if they ever came out and said it. He remembered the witch, remembered the silver butterfly clip in his bag, even if he didn’t remember her name. Some things were best never brought to mind, never given a root to cling to and spread like a disease. Hold on tight if you could, give up everything (he had, and would, time and again) but don’t give it a fucking name or let others name it for you. Too late for him, still time for Sam.  
  
  
So he kept up the glare, headed it off at the pass always, let people know with the stoniest looks that any questions they might have, any doubts, any concerns, Dean Winchester and his brother were not the people to come to. Suspicion is where it stayed.  
  
  
4.  
  
  
They see things; the monsters of the dark night, the wild children looking for kin in bars and clubs, the strange walking the streets in day and night.  They know without asking, even if they don’t know exactly what. They see the difference and taste the secrets, rip them still beating from secret chests and expose them to harsh light, unerringly probe the place that hurts the most, the unhealed bruise, the open wound. Dean spends so long guarding and fighting and refusing the hideous knowledge that they offer, sometimes by accident even, a sure tongue prodding a loose tooth, that he doesn’t guard his back well enough.  
  
  
When Sam kisses him; wild eyed with sudden dreadful need, (and maybe it’s the tequila, maybe it’s something else) he’s not prepared for any of it. Wrenches backwards and away, and the first thing he asks is _who told you (what)._ What he means is how did Sam guess? Was it some demon who looked too long at them both and turned too knowing eyes towards Sam, planted the seed of an idea that’d grow to the same fruition?  Some old crazy man on the street shouting filth, or some girl in a bar who’d gravitated to Sam first, suggested the same thing Dean had heard a hundred times?  
  
  
Sam curls in on himself, and Dean is reminded of nothing so much as Sam gently cooling in an empty room, just waiting for Dean to bring him back. He knows he should back away because whatever it is, he’s infected, but there’s no need to fan the flames or indulge it. “Nobody told me,” Sam says, and it’s soft and exhausted like hell, like Sam oughta be after everything they’ve done and what Dean has ahead of him waiting. It’s not like he’s going to go to a hell worse than the one he’s headed for already if he says yes. Dean wonders if it’s pity, but Sam is his, has been from the moment he was born and he’s not seeing the lie in his shoulders, or written in his face.  
  
  
When he steps forward once, twice, until he’s close against Sam again, he has to struggle not to repeat the question, because if Sam didn’t see what they had seen, hadn’t been assured of his reception... It isn’t like he doesn’t know what Sam could be, if he put his mind to it, he’s seen the proof, lived with the results, but that there says all kinds of things about what  Sam is. He lets himself lean forward just for the moment: rest his head against the wall, the rest of him tight and warm against Sam, no distance between them for once. “Yeah,” he says quietly, though he hardly knows what he’s agreeing to, what he’s saying. Words aren’t of any use here and their faces are no better guides, have led them wrong all this time.  
  
  
He doesn’t know who kisses who first, just that lip meets lip in a sudden fumble like Dean hasn’t ever imagined it might, and Sam’s breath is hot against his mouth, and whatever he’d expected  (if he’d imagined this going down) this wasn’t it. Sam tastes fiercely of tequila, faint fiery burn clinging to his lips, to his teeth and Dean feels like he’s getting drunk off secondhand contact. He sucks Sam’s bottom lip into his mouth, feels him malleable under his hands like he doesn’t want to jeopardise a single thing about it. Dean’s done what he can, tried to protect him from this, from the possibility and he’s done with it. One night isn’t so much, he thinks, and tries not to think of the nights that Sam will have alone all too soon.  
  
  
If Sam was a drunken hookup, Dean would know what to do next. Know how to smooth a hand down his jaw, and convert that kiss deeper, pull him in and never let him go (until the morning came.) But this is Sam, opening to him, letting Dean press so close he thinks he might just dissolve into him, and it should be the dirtiest kiss he’s ever had instead of the sweetest.  He barely realises that he’s hard; knows it on an intellectual level, but breaking this off to get to a bed doesn’t seem like something he can do.  Nipping at Sam’s mouth, letting Sam push leisurely in and sound him out, sweep his tongue in tiny delicate strokes against Dean’s own, is about all he’s up to right now. It’s too much handed over too soon. He’s not sure when that changes, when the smooth slide of tongue against tongue becomes more desperate, more fevered, but he goes with it; gets a hand around Sam’s neck and feels the soft hair and softer skin there, pulls him closer until it’s barely a kiss anymore.  
  
  
When they finally make it to the bed, Dean falls first, Sam lands on top. He toes off his shoes as he takes it, the heavy weight of his brother on him, grounding and anchoring him for these long moments.  He can’t even articulate what he wants next, but thinks Sam might get it because their dicks are aligned; even through two sets of jeans and boxers Dean can feel it, feel the heat and the need. He presses upwards and Sam rubs down and they’re going at it like two teenagers given ten minutes alone, no skin on skin, just tiny thrusts, inevitable friction. Dean’s not sure he can come like this, even with Sam kissing him again, but he’s willing to give it a shot; clutches Sam tighter, hands over his ass, hardly any breath left in his lungs now, until he’s too wound up to take anymore and hip thrusts Sam off him. Sam goes willingly, like he was _waiting_ for that. Dean doesn’t have the words to tell him he’s wrong, just demonstrates, wriggles out of his jeans, doesn’t bother with the socks or the shirt; thank God Sam can take that particular cue or Dean would have to wonder how he’d ever slept with anyone.  
  
  
The thought sends its own chill down his back, half arousal, half horror, and he closes his eyes like that’d block it out. Sam’s dick is naked against him now and it’s a hundred times more intense like this, skin sliding on skin, rough and friction-laden without lube.  But that just helps, drags him more into the moment: Sam’s hot breath on his face, Sam's dick against his own. Dean drags a hand through his hair, tugs on the strands that curl on his neck lightly, until Sam hitches a wet gasp against Dean's neck. He strokes his hand down Sam's back in tandem with the rough slide of their hips, over the bumps of Sam's spine, the carved deepness of his scars. He wants even more than this, doesn't know exactly what, like every bit of knowledge he's ever gained has been wiped out by this slow relentless movement against each other. He can imagine a few: going down on Sam, mouth wet and open, taking him in - and that sends a bolt of lust straight through him until his dick is wet with pre-come, even though he's never done that before. Sam breaks apart for a second, fumbles in the duffel by the side of the bed, comes up triumphant with a tube of lotion. Dean will concede that Sammy knows what he's doing- his hands are careful as he slicks them both up a little bit until they slide against each other, heavy and hard, easy motions. There's not much he can say, nothing he trusts himself to let out without turning himself inside out and leaving himself on view, so he takes refuge in quiet gasps. This isn't the sort of sex he has often, or ever even; it isn't what he would have expected from this. Something fast and hard perhaps, painful and lasting, marked on their skin like everything else about their life is. On impulse he thrusts up harder, rolls Sam over, is surprised when he goes.  
  
  
The bed is narrow enough that they have to be careful, and Dean, now that he's on top, has plans for what he wants to do. Sam's covered in aloe vera scented lotion which takes blowjobs right out of the equation, but he slides easy in Dean's grasp, thick and heavy in his hand, gifted in that department like he is in most others. Dean works him as best as he can, doesn't care about how often he slides right off, just returns to the base, works his hand steady and fast, rubs his thumb on the thick vein beneath the head of Sam's cock until he moans and thrusts against the air. Dean's fascinated by the sight more than he'd care to admit: Sam's face unguarded and open in the moment, eyes only half open as he watched Dean jerk him off, cup his balls with his other hand and work them as well, going by instinct, applying what he liked himself and watching how well it worked on Sam. It's almost a shock when Sam comes, wet and long against Dean's hand and his own stomach, head snapping back against the pillows, mouth open, shout suspended as though years of conditioning to be quiet in motel rooms had paid off. Dean strokes him through it, milks every drop, watches in a sort of semi-awe at what he has made, what he has caused to happen. His own dick is heavy and aching, not satisfied yet, but he hardly cares.  
  
  
Sam does; Sam always cares, and the truth of that hits Dean hard. He’s barely done coming when he’s sitting upright, dislodging Dean from his perch over his legs to drag him nearer like he needs to be close more than anything else. Dean’s dick is hard between them and he gets a hand on it before Sam takes charge, squirms over until he’s lying there, grabs a pillow and folds it under his stomach, and Jesus Christ Dean almost comes there and then from the sight. There’s the knowledge he’s always had of how much he loves Sam, but it’s a whole different kind of heavy when he sees Sam, vulnerable back turned, cheek turned on his hand watching Dean and waiting for him. They don’t have condoms, but as he watches Sam tightens his thighs together and a blush that Dean hasn’t seen in years stains his face. And Christ, Dean can’t let him look like that and not do anything. He’s never tried it, fucking had generally been on the menu most times he’d been in a position like this, but he’s heard of it. He runs a slippery hand over Sam’s thighs and ass, lowers himself onto his back and fucks him like that gently, dick thrusting through, grasped tight and firm. It feels better than he could’ve imagined; perfect slippery groove for his dick, bumping against Sam’s balls, and when he changes position it’s even better. He can’t think of anything else but getting off, fucking Sam like this until his own balls tighten and he comes, face buried against Sam, grateful to be hidden even for a moment as he lies there pressed against the length of Sam’s body and breathes in deep like he’s forgotten how.  
  
  
It’s Dean’s job to get something to wipe them off with; a threadbare damp towel does the trick before he climbs back into bed and lies there with Sam in silence so close there isn’t even air between them. He wonders what others will see when they look at them now, his worst fears embodied, every drop of darkness true, but can’t bring himself to care: they were wrong before in all the real essentials.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback appreciated as always.


End file.
